Enthralled Read Online Free

pot."
    Darby looked momentarily
disappointed, then his brows lifted. "But the best part of you is
Irish," he declared. "I can feel it."
    Teel's laughter rippled across
the cabin just as the door opened. The sound died abruptly as she faced an
indolent Chazz Herman, a thin black cigar held in his white teeth.
    "You must be
making her better, Darby," he said. "That's the first time I've heard
the sister laugh." He pushed himself away from the door frame and
extinguished the cigar in a convenient silver ashtray. His walk, more a lope
than a stride, Teel decided, carried him to her bedside in an instant. He
leaned over her, a muscle in the right side of his jaw working, and she had to
struggle not to dive under the covers. His lips jerked upward in the semblance
of a smile, as though he had read her thoughts and fears and already dismissed
them. "I've come to carry you up on deck," he told her.
    "The sun is shining and
the air is balmy. Before noon we'll be dropping anchor at a little island I
know. You can swim if you feel well enough."
    "I don't want to swim. I
want to go home. My aunt will be worrying about me." She coughed to clear
the dryness from her throat. "You don't have to wait," she added.”
One of the crew is coming to carry me on deck." She knew her words were
terse and impolite, but she felt smothered by him, threatened by Chazz Herman.
It was unbearable strain to be in his company.
    Chazz's mouth closed shut as
though he had just bitten through bone. His eyes had a hard sheen to them as he
looked down at her. She shivered under the cold heat of that look. "I'm
the one who's carrying you on deck, Sister." He spat out the words, harsh
mockery in his voice. Then he bent, stripped the silk sheet from her body, and
stared down at her as she lay there clad in a light cotton shift.
    "Now, Chazz—" Darby
came forward with an outstretched hand.
    "Quiet, Darby." The
command ricocheted off the walls, seeming to turn the serene turquoise room an
angry, metallic color. Chazz swooped down and swung Teel up into his arms, his
gold eyes daring her to defy him.
    She wanted to
level him with insults, but she couldn't form her lips around the scathing
words bursting inside her head.
    "That's
right. Sister, keep quiet." An alien fury seemed to emanate from him. His
strong arms clasped her body.
    She made a mental addendum to
her previous thought. She felt not only threatened by him but downright
menaced. What fuel burned him? she thought, caught between panic and anger. For
some unknown reason she had roused as fierce an antipathy in him as he had in
her. Perhaps anger responded to anger and grew.
    Whatever the reasons, Teel
knew she would never be comfortable with this man, that they could never be
friends. She would be balanced precariously as if on the edge of a knife until
she could escape the Deirdre and leave its owner behind forever.
     
    T he days that followed were
golden, warm, and relaxing. The constant ministrations of the crew left Teel
feeling thoroughly pampered aboard the Deirdre. After Chazz had first brought her up on deck, he had occupied
himself elsewhere, which relieved her. If only she could talk with her aunt
instead of getting second-hand messages through Darby, then everything would
have been perfect. She knew Aunt Tessa was fine and on her way home to Albany, but Teel longed to reassure her personally of her own safety.
    Often the Deirdre anchored at sand
beaches on obscure islands whose names Teel forgot the moment she heard them.
Otherwise they cruised through crystal-blue waters. Teel didn't much care where
they went. Her most important concern was her returning health, her only
unsettling worry that of seeing Chazz Herman. But since days had gone by
without his appearance, she was at least partly successful at putting him out
of her mind.
    "Darby"—Teel was
resting in a lounge chair on deck— "that lunch was delicious. Would you
tell the chef I love fish pan-broiled in lemon like that?"
    "I hate to